#that sylvie’s whole character is transphobic (which it IS transphobic)

[lilatreus]

Loki stans on tiktok keep picking the worst people to fancast for him. Why don’t you find a genderfluid/transgender actor to fancast as loki instead of reusing that god awful Katie McGrath bullshit.

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

Okay so this a rant lol. There is something I’ve seen in pretty much every fandom I’ve ever been in but sylki antis really do excel in it. Basically there’s this type of anti that doesn’t outright send hate to shippers. Sometimes they even say they want people to ship whatever they want. And it’s all to make it seem like they are mature and fair- compared to sylki shippers, who are aggressive little kids who can’t behave. They won’t say it like that but they definitely want others to see it this way. One example of that is a loki fan account on instagram that made a post telling their followers that they will start putting a sylki/sylvie tw everytime it/she shows up on their page. Their reason is the same old one-sylki is fluidphobic, transphobic and that is making some fans uncomfortable. And judging only by that, the account looks good, like they are thinking of the wellness of their followers. Nevermind that they were already expressing open dislike for both sylvie and sylki since way before this tw thing. Or that they openly ship l0kius. They also won’t listen if someone comes to them and explains why sylki isn’t phobic. Even if the person is gerdenfluid themself. If people say they are uncomfortable then the trigger warning is justifiable (unless if you say that m0bius being the equivalent to a cop and loki being his prisoner makes l0kius uncomfortable for you- that doesn’t warrant a tw). Another common thing is the “sylki dni” bios. Which would be fine if sylkis weren’t listed with terfs, map/pedophiles and others. Bonus points if it’s accompanied by “I’m a victim of x abuse” or “it’s okay if you ship it but please don’t follow me bc sylki reminds me of *huge list of traumas*”. They will say they respect it and then point out all the moral fallacies they believe sylki represents. It’s obvious they want sylkis to look abhorrent. It’s not even required that sylkis interact with them for them to sell this image of general awfulness. Even though they can “respect peoples rights to ship w/e they want” they will still arbitrarily apply moral values to ships so that theirs will always be superior. This whole calm, put together, mature stance is very deliberate bc it creates this image that they are the rational ones in this debate. It adds a sense of credibility to their argument while feeding people the idea that sylkis (or whichever shippers they are against) are gross and therefore worthy of humiliation. And of course, since sylkis are so bad then their arguments shouldn’t be taken seriously- we become simultaneously dangers to the fandom and children that can’t behave.

oof. I haven't seen this type of behavior specifically--everything I've personally seen has been more blatant--but yeah, that...really doesn't surprise me. honestly, I don't think I would ship Sylki as much as I do if not for the fact that I got pissed at Sylki antis early, and I kind of went "I actually prefer it as a platonic relationship but if people are going to get super gross about the ship in general, Sylki shippers, and Sylvie as a character, then I'm going to ship it out of sheer spite"...and then that pretty quickly turned into genuinely liking the ship and not only shipping it out of spite, but still. this type of thing is also why Lokius rapidly turned into something of a notp for me, too--because sure, not all Sylki antis are Lokius shippers, but I'd bet money that's where most of them are coming from.

honestly the thing about this that seems the most wild to me is--it's a canon ship. obviously that doesn't obligate people to like or ship Sylki, but--it's canon! people don't usually react with this level of vitriol and moral outrage to canon ships, do they? on the other hand maybe they do and I've just avoided those fandoms, but it seems bizarre to me that people are getting so bent out of shape about a thing that officially happened, in actual canon, onscreen, to the point of putting "Sylkis DNI" and shit like that in their headers and actually harassing people for liking something "problematic", when I would imagine the vast majority of viewers had no problem with it.

...no, wait, I take that back, I just recently saw a Twitter thread with screencaps of a Tumblr post where someone was very sincerely arguing that the problematic nature of something in Steven Universe was a bigger problem than the actual real-life fraud this person had committed, so...I guess I really shouldn't be surprised by anything antis do

[lokidyke]

my issue with loki ending up with Sylvie is not that I don’t think he should end up w a woman, or even with the whole selfcest thing bc, I mean, it is loki. Tbh if they want to pair loki up with a woman I think there are ways to do that. My issue is that I simply don’t think he has any chemistry with sylvie, which makes me think that they didn’t do any chemistry and the romance was a shoehorned-in afterthought bc ppl kept demanding that there be. Romance in the loki show. I also just think sylvie’s aesthetic is bland, because I get the sense they are hesitant to make her look too much like loki to keep it from feeling weird. But like, if ur gonna go with a selfcest plot - just commit to it you know ! It makes no sense that Sylvie would want to look blonde in order to be different from our loki if she had no prior awareness of our loki. And also, I feel like she wouldn’t want to look blonde because then she would look related to Thor, and there’s no circumstance where that would make sense to me; no matter what loki would want to stand out from Thor, and the way he looks is reflects that.

anon how does it feel to be a mind reader?

i’m with you basically 100%. i think a well written romance between loki and a woman could be done beautifully, and it wouldn’t HAVE to involve selfcest. i have a distaste for selfcest bc it just seems like boring JO materials as opposed to an interesting relationship dynamic.

but yeah loki and sylvie have zero chemistry. it feels like it was intentional from the jump and not an afterthought because tom’s acting for loki and sylvie scenes really gives it away- he’s a great actor, and you can tell he played for romance, or at least he played it with loki having complicated and potentially romantic feelings for sylvie in mind. regardless, their chemistry is incredibly forced. sophia is a fantastic actress, but she’s given almost nothing to do. she has no emotional interest in loki and is only interested in taking his help in her quest to find answers, which isn’t a bad thing, just poorly written and lacks understanding of who the focus of the show is supposed to be on.

i agree a lot with the mention of her look and hair. her outfit is very loki inspired, which i like, and yea i dont get why she had to be blonde. my first thought was “well since she’s a frankenstein character of lady loki and sylvie the enchantress, the blonde hair must be inspired by the enchantress” but i’m with you. loki will always want to stand out from thor, and having the same hair color as him would probably bother her. they literally only gave her that hair color so sylvie looked different from loki, which you’re right, shows how confused the writers were when it came to the selfcest. they want to play with it but won’t commit to it, so it’s just fucking uncomfortable and horrible to sit through.

speaking of thor, the fact that sylvie hasn’t mentioned her thor AT ALL, even with him coming up in the show all the time. i think this is deliberate too, similar to the hair thing- they don’t want the audience to acknowledge that they share a brother, or else the audience would feel grossed out by the selfcest because it’s connecting them in a sibling like fashion. which, again, either do selfcest or don’t. i don’t want them to but the fact that they seem on the fence about it themselves is what makes it so much worse.

also has anyone else noticed that literally NOTHING plot wise has happened in the show since episode 2? like nothing has happened. just loki and mobius’s relationship, which i’m sad we didn’t get more of.

anyway, i love lokius and sylvie/B15. i wish sylvie had a character and personality instead of being a live action Y/N. i wish anything that involved the TVA made any sense at all. i wish they didn’t needlessly add that line where all the other loki’s are horrified at the prospect of a female loki, because loki’s are canonically genderfluid and they know this and have acknowledged it but are just ignoring it and are being transphobic by doing so. i’m glad to see loki whoring it up in the year of our lord 2021, though.

last but certainly not least, the way they treated boastful loki was racist. it just was. and the fandom is acting racist as fuck about it too, acting like boastful loki betraying the others to align w president loki is some irredeemable evil. they’re all LOKIS. they do that shit and it’s funny! i love you boastful loki!!! they literally used it as an excuse to write him out of the episode, and for what??? for WHAT??? all the characters of color are either villains and/or are treated like garbage (B15 locked up in her cell for helping sylvie and just being fucking left there).

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

Sorry, I'm going to rant, but I need to get it out.

Is Sylvie x Loki biphobic? No, not in the slightest. Bi people are not bi only if they have date two different genders or are currently in a gay relationship. However, I still have an issue with this whole ship.

My problem with this whole relationship is the fact they're literally the same person from different timelines (if you ship them, please, ask yourself if you would still ship them if it was two Tom Hiddleston Loki), and also the message implied by this episode 4 of the series. Loki is shown to have this fear of being alone forever and, how does the show decides to prove him wrong? By giving him a love-interest! I hate it, it's invalidating for aspec people and it's unnecessary. This show doesn't need a romance, Loki doesn't need a romance and, by giving him one, the writers are showing me they don't understand Loki.

Loki is afraid of being alone, so he creates chaos to get the attention of others, often his brother. Attention Thor decided to stop giving him in Ragnarok (The elevator scene), which push Loki to change. Loki feels out of place and undeserving of love because of his lineage, because he was adopted, because of the way Odin, his father, treated him and favored Thor. Loki wants to be part of this family, he loves his family, and he's broken when he learned the truth. Loki deserves his brother. He deserves a family.

But no, Loki here is told he will finish alone unless he falls in love. And not with anybody, but with himself (this sounds like he's accepting he could be a good person and who he is, which would be a good thing, and not that he is literally falling in love with another version of himself) to show that nobody can love him (only romantic love matters /s) but himself and he will forever be alone in a way.

Also, Loki is genderfluid but only on paper. He's never with another appearance (when he has the power to) or referenced as another gender than male. And even Sylvie, which I stupidly hoped was AMAB like him but changed her name and appearance for more "feminine" ones, is, it seems to, be a cis woman. It's not transphobic, because genderfluid people are still queer even when they identify as their assigned gender.

Wait, I see a pattern here... The characters are queer, trans and gay on papers, but their actions and their relationship are cis and hetero...

This is not representation, but a joke of it, meant to appease the queerphobic audience while getting some bonus points from the "woke" audience. The crew of Loki is doing the bare minimum, and are a bunch of assh*les while doing it (celebrating on twitter that you made Loki officially bi when it's just one phrase, for example...)

We deserve better.

I also want to point out that I don't give a shit about the rhetoric "Loki f*cked a horse" because the MCU is a work of fiction inspired by Nordic mythology. Loki is not the deity anymore (in this context), he's a character. His story is not the one told centuries ago, but the one on our screens. He's genderfluid and bi like any genderfluid and bi people out there, not like a god who get f*ck by horses. Thank you.

This post is not an invitation to start a discussion, just a rant.

[prevariiicator]

I don't like how the Loki series is handling gender and you can tell a straight white man wrote the scripts/screenplays

I do love the Loki series, I do, but they are REALLY bothering me with how they are handling gender.

1) They claim MCU Loki is genderfluid, the only time we've seen him switch to a female form was to annoy Thor as a projection of Sif. We have 0 actual evidence MCU Loki is genderfluid.

2) They put so much emphasis on Sylvie being female and it being weird. If Loki's are genderfluid then Old Loki shouldn't be saying shit like how he's never seen a female Loki and it sounds terrifying. YOU HANG OUT AND TALK TO AN ALLIGATOR AND A FEMALE IS WEIRD AND TERRIFYING????? (On one hand though old comic Loki was a huge misogynist and abuser so...it does fit his character a little)

3) At this point if Sylvie is or isn't a Loki the gender representation and the way they've handled gender is still a huge fucking issue and it's been severely butchered in its handling so far. If she is a Loki it's going to be bullshit because all these Loki's who are like 'wut a female??' and the ignoring that Loki is genderfluid on documentation makes it more of an issue than her gender is such a big plot point. If she ISN'T a Loki then it will just backtrack the whole genderfluid thing ENTIRELY.

4) The fact that Loki is falling for Sylvie mainly because she's a female version of himself, which is also weird to normalize selfcest before m/m f/f relationships, is another huge issue which falls back on the 'YOU CAN'T HAVE A FEMALE CHARACTER UNLESS SHE IS A LOVE INTEREST!' bs writing. Put it in simpler terms, watch the scene in Crimson Peak where Edith takes her book to the publisher and he insists she add a love story. Her female lead character wasn't allowed to exist until she added a romance to her story. Which is bullshit. And remember, that's set in 1901, and that shit is STILL HAPPENING IN 2021. Which is why the romance factor has severely irked me throughout the series.

It was very obvious the writer was a straight white man, and allowing Sylvie's gender to be such an issue in the creative process on the director's end is also a major disappointment from Kate Herron.

LOKI IS LOKI. ALWAYS. GENDER DOESN'T MATTER. IF YOU'RE GOING TO DO GENDERFLUID LOKI IT SHOULDN'T BE MADE A PLOT POINT FOR A FEMALE VERSION TO BE AN ODDITY.

And the casuals who call all-female versions of Loki 'Lady Loki' NEED TO STOP. That was Loki using possession, a power he doesn't have anymore BECAUSE OF HOW HEINOUS THAT ACT WAS. He STOLE Sif's body and left her in an elderly dying mortal.

-Also it's been pointed out to me that the Lady Loki run was a very transphobic line, and you know, I agree. I'm going to do more research on that fact via asking questions to my friend when she's awake, and maybe even hit up my trans ex for their opinion as well.

[aussie-tea]

As a queer and a bisexual woman, the only "issue" i have with the series is that i'd prefer they used "feminine/masculine-presenting" when addressing Loki/Sylvie at least once. Other than that i don't think they had to address anything really. It is not LBGTQ media about sexuality and this kind of stuff.

Someone said that people intentionally read incorrectly into the story in order to scream about nonexistent issues with the show. Like, reading Sylvie as a trans-coded character while in actuality she could not be read as such: Sylvie never transitioned or felt especially uncomfortable with her sex. "A Loki" comes in all shapes and forms. Sylvie being born a female was never an issue. So, the whole argument "Sylvie is canonically trans but is played by a cis actress so she is a transphobic character" is invalid. This argument is solely based on the misinterpretation. But as many have said, you can still headcanon Sylvie as trans.

On the other hand, i have read people explain how Sylvie's rebellion could be read as a metaphor for queer rebellion against the compulsory heteronormativity which i liked.

I 100% agree with the fact that Sylvie is "feminine-presenting" and Loki being "masculine-presenting". On Loki's TVA forms it confirms that he is fluid, but that doesn't mean that his being "masculine-presenting" makes his fluid gender invalid.

On the other hand, I think it would be hard for the writers to be able to openly use that language in the show. It's hard for us on tumblr to reconnect with the actual world and realise that this language is not as familiar with the outside world as it should be.

At the end of the day, it's not the Loki show's job to inform the world about lgbtq+ community. It wasn't a queer documentary, and they didn't have time in their short six-episode season to fully explain the complexity of gender fluidness.

[bigpeepee]

No, darling, I am fully including Sylvie. T4T genderfluid bi4bi, self acceptance forever. I’m too old to pretend at shame. This is unironically good. Every pairing is good. Love wins

darling, you can include whatever you want, but don't come to me expecting me to agree. because if you're implying that i'm transphobic or biphobic for not being against s*lki you're coming to the wrong place. i've made several long posts about why i strongly disagree with it, and how hurtful it is for queer people to make it canon. you can look those up, but you got me in a certain mood so let's sum it up, shall we?

first of all, no, they're not genderfluid. i fucking wish they were. if, gun to my head, i had to pick a label for my gender i would probably say genderfluid, so i would have every reason to want representation. unfortunately, despite them saying they would make loki genderfluid, they ended up making him explicitly cis. it's not even up to interpretation as they try to say. both loki and sylvie are explicitly cisgender in canon. word of god doesn't mean shit if you explicitly say the opposite in canon.

second, two bisexual people in a straight passing relationship are still bisexual, yes, and they're valid. once again, i'm bisexual, i fucking know that. but that applies to real people. fictional characters are intentionally written. if you have one (1) queer character, and you make him come out with half a sentence and then you shove him into a straight passing relationship, you're intentionally making him look as straight as possible. especially if you specifically wrote the other character as the only female variant. the only option you had to make them look straight.

third, fucking another version of yourself is not exactly what i would call self acceptance. i've made a whole bunch of posts about wether it's selfcest or incest, and about the fact that no matter which one it is it's still morally wrong or at the very best extremely morally gray. and shoving your only queer character in a relationship like that says two things: 1) queer people are weird and different and immoral and 2) we would rather have an immoral straight relationship than a healthy gay relationship.

not every pairing is good. not the pairings that are made to damage queer people while hiding behind the banner of "look we're so cool :) we're doing representation :) you should thank us :)"

you're too old to "pretend at shame"? good. i'm too old to be treated like a fucking idiot by multi billion dollar companies. this is not how love wins. this is how cishet people win and queer people get fucked once again. darling. :)

[alorenawrites]

Thoughts on Loki, Gender, Sex, and Identity

So...I've seen a few posts on transphobia embedded in Loki and I wanted to examine my own thoughts on this a bit. I'm not going to dig too deeply, just hit on a few of my thoughts on the matter regarding my own positionality as a demisexual, demiromantic, bisexual, nonbinary, gender funky human.

To begin, my own relationship to sex and gender is complicated, based on my own experiences. I'm fine with people not having this same interpretation because of differences in experience and I'm not going to sit around and listen to anyone bombarding me with statements about how wrong they think I am. Go write a post with relevance to your own experience and please don't shit on mine. The purpose of this is to share my own thoughts on this matter, not to get into an argument. I have enough real-world stress regarding these things and don't need them on Tumblr as well.

I've seen the argument that Loki is gender fluid and it is wrong to say he is sex fluid or that sex fluidity is a way to undercut or deny the validity of gender fluidity. I don't see it this way. To begin, we don't actually see Loki display gender fluidity, even though shape-shifting is clearly within his skill set. MCU Loki shifts into Sif once in The Dark World, but other than that, there is little evidence outside of his word at this. I know those creating this story did refer to him as gender fluid, but I question whether those who stand outside that fluidity might not be as well-versed in how gender fluidity comes in a myriad of experiences. I am fine with the idea that perhaps Loki still uses traditionally male pronouns while in other shapes. I am not considering comic interpretations of Loki in this, as there are so many different storylines that I think they would be hard to sum up into this character. And it is fine if you don't see this the same way.

In myth, when Loki transforms into a maiden during the marriage of "Freya" (Thor in disguise) to Thrym, the book I reference (Neil Gaiman's retellings of the myths) does, at one point, refer to Loki as "he." When the mythological Loki transforms into the mare to lure the horse Svadilfari away from the builder of their wall, the references to the mare indicate "she" (and it is worth noting that in this retelling, the mare is never referred to as Loki by name), but when Loki returns he is referred to using male pronouns yet still as Sleipnir's mother.

In the television show, Loki's file lists his sex as fluid. As gender and sex are entirely separate, I took this into consideration as a part of what defines a Loki- they may change physical sex. I did not see an entry for gender on the file. I may have missed it. But to me, the lack of listing gender and the inclusion instead of sex leads me to believe that the TVA doesn't much care for the gender of a variant, but rather the body in which they are most likely to inhabit. In this case, it would seem that knowing if a Loki is more likely to appear as a physical type without regard to pronouns or gender might be considered more important data than gender identity and pronouns. I examine this as someone who has to handle grant data that requires a sex marker in the demographics- not a gender identity, but an assigned-at-birth or otherwise legally documented sex.

I don't see these two things as mutually exclusive or an erasure of one another. I would see it as a way for the TVA to try to classify a variant without regards to any sort of identity. After all, if Lokis are destined for pruning, who cares how they see themselves? It's not like they are going to have an extended conversation with them- process them, judge them, prune them.

In the context of the Lokis we meet, and the note that they haven't met a female Loki, I do wonder why they haven't met one yet. Is it because they don't catch every Loki that comes through? Is it because they themselves have only ever experienced being Loki as men and and haven't assumed otherwise? I don't know. But I don't see it as impossible to explain, either. How many Loki variants have come through? And how many haven't survived? We don't see every variant in the Void that we see in Mobius' briefing holograms. Who didn't make it, and who is missing? Yes, the comment that she "sounds terrifying" could be read as incredibly sexist, but at the same time...Lokis grew up with stories of the Valkyrie, powerful warrior women who they likely looked at with awe, wondering why these towers of strength were no longer with them. The Valkyrie predate them and are mythic figures- we see how Thor reacts to meeting one of these warriors in Ragnarok. Given that this line comes from Loki the Elder, someone who leans into the power of sorcery and the capabilities of magic, wouldn't it make sense that the combination of these skills would seem terrifying? A warrior of the legendary capabilities of the Valkyrie combined with the might of a Loki sorcery? I mean, I'd probably think the same thing, and I think this is possibly one reason why the variant Loki we come to know would agree with him- she has been jumping through time, surviving apocalypses that likely terrify him, enchanting anyone she needs to use, and she can run circles around him. Given the tonal shift in the delivery of the line "and she needs me," I interpret this as the blustering Loki does when he wants to feel more important than he really is- he's trying to justify why he needs to find her to someone else (and possibly to himself) instead of just saying it's because he cares deeply about her and wants to know what the hell that means. Sylvie can clearly take care of herself and doesn't really need rescue. He wants to feel important enough to go back and to convince the others he is as well. That she could render him irrelevant is something that would be terrifying to someone who craves attention and affirmation.

Mobius says that the most common iterations of Lokis look like the one standing before him, yet Loki does encounter a variant file from California in the early 20th century that refers to Sylvie. So the TVA knows that there is a rare chance that a sex fluid Loki could exist (and they have, presumably, pruned them). While I wish this had been explored further, I don't necessarily see it as a transphobic intent. Did it resonate that way with some people? Yes. And that's fine. Their feelings on the matter are valid.

Another element of my interpretation of this comes from my own experiences of gender expression. Most of the time during which I have been out as nonbinary, people have read my gender as a woman. I like my long dresses and I have an extensive collection of vintage women's clothing. I also have a decent collection of corsets and well-tailored suits that fit my body type. I don't bind my chest. My hair varies from very short to as long as it will grow (not far past my shoulders). I occasionally wear eyeshadow, regardless of what gender I am on any given day. I very rarely read masculine and when I feel neutral, I still don't bother to alter my body shape, only sometimes choosing a bra or bra tank top that decentuates my curves (which, granted, aren't dramatic). So the concept of a gender fluid individual choosing gendered pronouns and reading as male during the (relatively short) time in his lifespan during which the audience knows him doesn't seem odd to me, as it is how I've existed (and I, too, used gendered pronouns for a few years on my nonbinary journey- they were a default while I searched for something that suited me better). But I have known nonbinary people who have exclusively used gendered pronouns and it does not invalidate their gender identity, nor does gendered expressions of that identity. The concept that we would only see a male presenting Loki doesn't seem very odd because I have lived a stretch of my life during which I, too, presented a very femme gender expression and used traditionally female pronouns. But that did not make me less nonbinary.

And, of course, this is assuming that gender fluidity is part of his identity, which we are never told in the text of the story. I reject that everything a creator says must be added to the text of a piece of media simply because the piece also has to stand on its own and be interpreted on that level as well. We do know that Loki shifts sex, which makes sense for someone who shifts bodies, as sex is tied more to bodies than gender is.

The point in this is that we can't assume the gender of a fictional character, just as we can't assume from appearance the gender of a living human. I may read as a woman, but this is not my gender identity and no one should be assuming that my clothes are meant to project gender. Reducing gender to an outward and bodily expression of sex is not something with which I am comfortable, and it seems that some people are conflating the two in their interpretation. Again, your experiences may differ from mine and it's fine to see this in another way.

But here's another very important thing this show can demonstrate. Allow an anecdote. My children watched this show with me. My son is nearly 7, my daughter a few months from being 10. She is very femme- loves makeup, frilly dresses, dolls, princesses, My Little Pony, the whole shebang of activities stereotypically associated with the childhood of girls. At this point in her life, she very much asserts that she is a girl. The same goes for my son- he very much asserts himself as a boy. When we were watching together, we talked about Loki being gender fluid, just like their Mum. We talked about Loki being bisexual, just like their Mum. They understood that just because Loki looks one way, it doesn't mean he is that way...again, just like their Mum. There is power in the idea that some of us are in this same position- we are assumed to be cisgender based on our appearances, but our identities are more complex than that. I thought this was a good window for my children to see through and one I could turn into a teachable moment about all the different sorts of people there are in this world. This is the blessing of imperfect media- we can find ways to learn from it and to share opportunities in it for open interpretation with those around us. And the lesson of not jumping to conclusions about gender or sex based on appearance is a deeply important one for young children to understand.

Is this an area in which I have a problem with the show? No. Does this mean the show couldn't have done more or better? Also no. We do need a variety of types of representation. But seeing the possibilities of this being someone a little more like me (though alas, I can't shift shape)? That was nice.

Hopefully we can see more of this in the future, but if we don't, we can create transformative works to fill in the gaps. It's what fan communities have always done and will continue to do. When I fell into fandom years ago with Harry Potter, long before the movies were all out, so many works were there to add queerness, racial diversity, language diversity, disability representation, all of it, into the series. It didn't stop us from still enjoying what it meant to us in those times and places and I don't think we have to outright reject this show for the imperfections we see in it. It can still thrill us and speak to something in us we've been lacking.

And in my case, that is the affirmation of wearing traditionally gender coded clothes while still asserting my pronouns are ze/zir/zirs and my gender is nonbinary, though also gender fluid, gender optional, or gender funky and that my oft-assumed-to-be-hetero relationship makes me no less bi or any other piece of my complex relationship to sexual orientation (and sharing that affirmation with my kids).